Your fishing line needs Sun Protectant too. Do you protect your fishing line from damaging sunlight, most fishermen never give this a passing thought. Sunlight will not only give you a sunburn, it will also give your fishing line sunburn. The UV rays which are harmful to your skin are just as harmful to your fishing line. This means every kind of fishing line: spinning monofilament, tapered flylines and leader tippet.

Sunlight will cause the flyline coating to be come cracked and brittle. And sunlight will rot nylon monofilament and nylon tippet. And when nylon rots, it loses strength dramatically.

Yet most fishermen do nothing to protect their line from the sun. Now, of course, when you are actually fishing, the line on your reel isn't exposed to the sun. But you see very few anglers who take the next important steps.

- ALWAYS, absolutely without fail, apply flyline conditioner to your flyline once a day when you fish. If you are on a month-long fishing trip, that means treat your flyline every evening after you come in off the stream.

And treat it again when you get home, before you store the reel, whether you have been gone just for the day or for 30 days. By the way, you don't need to apply conditioner more that once every 6 to 12 months to the entire flyline, but the used end (typically the first 30 to 40 feet) should get the daily treatments.

Do you know how to quickly estimate 40 feet of line?

For most people, the distance from thumb to thumb with arms outstretched is 5 - 6 feet. Measure yourself to know your own dimensions. Then use it to measure out that 40 feet each evening.

If your flyline is light-coloured, take a yardstick or steel measuring tape and, beginning at the tip of the flyline, measure 10 feet. With a black permanent marker, mark a black band on the line. At a distance of 20 feet from the tip, mark two black bands.

Repeat as far as you want up the line. If you use double-tapered flylines rather than weight-forward lines, mark the DT line from both tips up to the halfway point. When one end of the DT line wears out, turn it around and use the new half. That way you get twice the life from one flyline.

These black bands are also great for knowing just how much flyline you are casting.

- When you are not using your reels, store them in their protective bags to not only keep out dirt but to keep out sunlight.

- Never, EVER, store your rod and reel in the back window of your car, never, ever, ever! That will kill your line in no time at all.

- And here is the worst way that I know of to kill your flyfishing tippet material. And you can't begin to count how many flyfishermen are guilty of this. Because of the design of flyfishing vests, which encourage fishermen to dangle stuff from various hooks on the vest, most everyone you see lets their spools of tippet material dangle from the outside of their vest for convenience. And those poor tippet spools bake in the UV rays, even in the winter. Store all tippet spools inside vest pockets, out of direct sunlight!

All men may be created equal, but all sunglasses are not.

Wear only polarized glasses. Use polarized glasses both to protect your eyes from UV rays and also to eliminate surface glare off the water to help you spot fish. But do you know how to be sure the glasses you are wearing are polarized? You will need a second pair of polarized glasses to conduct this test. Use either your mate's pair or use a pair at a tackle shop. Look through the lenses of both pairs at the same time. Then turn one pair a quarter turn. Everything should go dark, even go black. If you can still see through both pairs, then at least one pair, and possibly both pairs, are not polarized. Only if both pairs are polarized will the lenses turn dark.

Every fisherman should own at least one pair of women's nylons.

This is not something weird, a woman's nylon, at least a patch of the nylon material about 100 x 100 is the absolute best way there is to make one of the most critical tackle tests. I am talking about checking your rod and reel for line damage, burrs and cracks. Take the hunk of nylon and draw it lightly through each guide on your rod. On larger guides like the butt guide on a spinning rod, be sure to pull the nylon through several times so that you end up drawing the nylon over all the inner surface of the guide. Do the same thing in the reverse direction through each guide, so you get the opposite face of the guide.

Even the tiniest roughness, let alone severe damage, will snag and hang up the nylon as you pull it through. Short of a microscope, there is no finer means to locate guide damage. Pay special attention to the guide on the end of the rod (the tiptop). It, more than any of the other guides, suffers from line abrasion.

Now get out your reels. Draw the nylon patch over all the surfaces on the reel which make contact with the line. Pay special attention to the line roller and the bail arm on spinning reels. These sustain extreme line abrasion.

Never, ever continue fishing with damaging guides or reel surfaces. In no time at all, you will ruin the line and likely lose a fish or a lure to weakened line.

A 3X or 4X magnifying glass will quickly show any damage, such as cracking, in a flyline.

Come to grips with your hand.

Measure your hand. Every fisherman should know the width of his hand span, from the thumb to little finger, fully outstretched.

Then use it. Measure the size of the fish you catch. That will minimize any tendency to exaggerate. Use it to measure the length of a fly tippet as you stand on the stream. Your hand span is your own personal ruler.

Know how long your shoe is, to measure off distance on the ground.

If you want to carry a measuring tape, go to the local fabric store and buy the plastic tailor's tape, 25mm wide by a metre long. It is usually numbered in reverse on the backside. Cut it in half at the ½ metre mark, to make two tapes, It folds into a compact unit and is both waterproof and rustproof. Refrain from cutting it in half, if you are an optimist!

Stop cuff creep.

Put your waders on the right way. Whether you use boot foot waders or stocking foot waders, here is the easy way to get them on. First, always wear a pair of oversize woollen socks over your regular socks. Then wrap the cuffs of your pants snug around your ankles. Then pull the wool socks up and over the cuffs, trapping the cuffs. Now you can slip the waders on without having your pants inch upward as you pull the waders on.

Pin two large safety pins inside the top band of your waders. They come in very handy to repair things like a broken shoulder strap on the stream.

When woollen socks wear out, throw away only the foot portion. Cut off and save the portion between the top of the sock and the heel. Then when your hands get cold but you don't want the interference of full gloves, pull on the "wrist dickies." They cover the gap from the end of your coat sleeve to the last knuckle of your fingers and are nearly as warm as gloves or mittens. They let you tie knots and can be pushed up and out of the way easily if you have to reach into the water.